New Jersey

July 03, 2018

In 2004, we published our “Top 10 Zany Immunity Law Awards,” poking fun at special interests that annually line up before state lawmakers asking “for the opportunity to show their patriotic civic duty” by getting immunity for themselves. “After all,” we satirized, “just in case they do something wrong, why should they have to pay for it anyway?” We had the “Let’s Put the FUN Back in FUNerals” Award, for the law immunizing morticians in Indiana who mix-up body parts; the “Make Mine Extra Crispy” Award, for legislation immunizing tanning parlors in Colorado; and the “One Strike, You’re Out … Cold” Award, which shields baseball park owners from liability in Arizona.

Today, all joking aside, we are seeing a new incarnation of this strategy, but there’s nothing very funny about it. It comes courtesy of an often unpopular yet incredibly brazen group of special interests – used car dealers. If restoring their reputation or fostering good will is any sort of goal for this group, their latest endeavor isn’t going to help.

Nine out of 10 Americans believe that car dealers shouldn’t sell used cars with safety defects. Despite this fact, dealers have successfully pushed in Tennessee and Pennsylvania — and are now trying to pass in New Jersey — legislation to allow used car dealers to sell used cars with unrepaired safety defects. (They have been unsuccessful — for now — with similar bills in California, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, and Virginia.) What’s more, the dealers would not be liable for resulting injuries or deaths caused by the safety defect. All the car dealer has to do is “disclose” (i.e. bury in paperwork) when selling the car that it’s under safety recall. But obviously, the whole idea is to allow these dealers to pressure and confuse customers into buying unrepaired cars, and then not be on the hook for selling them.

This legislation will hurt decent, hardworking Americans in extremely disturbing ways. Just ask Alexander Brangman, whose beautiful 26-year-old daughter, Jewel, was killed by an unrepaired, recalled Takata airbag. You may have heard about Jewel. She was the girlfriend of actor Scott Eastwood, Clint’s son, and a “a gifted gymnast, gymnastics teacher and model” who was preparing for her Ph.D. Her father, Alexander, is now on a mission to ensure that such a tragedy doesn’t happen to anyone else. As he wrote to the Governor of New Jersey about the bill under consideration:

April 11, 2018

For those of us who watched the Penn State/Jerry Sandusky scandal from afar, the new HBO movie Paterno brings back some horrible memories. But I cannot imagine how brutal it all must be for the survivors of his abuse. Yet to make matters worse, these brave individuals also have had to endure unrelenting news reports of schools that still cover-up sexual assault by athletes, coaches and other authorities.

Coming on the heels of the scandal involving serial sexual abuser, Dr. Larry Nassar, on Monday a young woman filed a 14-page complaint in a Michigan federal court about allegedly being gang-raped by members of the Michigan State University basketball team. Writes the Daily Beast:

The [MSU] staffers “made it clear to [Doe] that if she chose to notify the police, she faced an uphill battle that would create anxiety and unwanted media attention and publicity, as had happened with many other female students who were sexually assaulted by well-known athletes,” according to the lawsuit.

She was allegedly told that they had seen a lot of these cases with “guys with big names” and that the best thing to do is to “just get yourself better.”

“If you pursue this, you are going to be swimming with some really big fish,” they allegedly said.…

Afterward, Doe “was so discouraged” by the interaction that “she became frightened” and decided not to report the assault to law enforcement. After several sightings of her attackers and months of panic and flashbacks, she “had become so traumatized, depressed, and withdrawn to the point that she was admitted to the Sparrow Hospital outpatient psychiatric day-program for intensive psychiatric treatment,” according to the complaint.

She withdrew from school for a semester and, upon returning, changed her major. She no longer wanted to be a sports journalist.

Speaking of Nassar, it’s now being reported that that scandal may be a “costlier problem” for MSU than Sandusky was for Penn State, according to a new report from Wells Fargo Securities.

And now comes word of another lawsuit just filed by a former wrestler at Bergen Catholic High School and his parents who say:

Bergen Catholic High School officials conspired to cover up sexual and verbal abuse in its nationally recognized wrestling program that included the sharing of pornographic images, coaches watching wrestlers strip naked and inappropriate text messages sent to athletes [and that] Newark Archdiocese officials worked to shield the wrestling coaches from "criminal detection" in a "conspiracy to endanger children."…

The civil complaint was filed on March 26 … [and] mentions up to 100 other victims, whose identifies are not known, in anticipation of more plaintiffs joining the case.

Oh but not to fear, there’s some great news out of Pennsylvania! On Monday, "Mercyhurst University in Erie said … it is taking down the late William Garvey's presidential photograph from the library, removing plaques in his honor and eliminating the name 'Garvey Park.'" Garvey was a 25-year president (1980 until 2005), teacher and youth coach. Seems like on Friday, his name showed up “on an Erie Diocese list of 51 clergy and lay people who had been credibly accused of sexually abusing children or other misconduct.”

I hate to be cynical here, but chances are that Mercyhurst University, who had nothing but praise for Garvey’s “visionary leadership” when he passed away last year, knew or should have known about this abuse before Friday. Trying to erase his legacy by taking down his picture and plaques doesn’t do a whole lot, especially for Garvey’s victims. I'm just sorry they even have to read about it.

September 21, 2016

You don’t have to be a severely allergic child whose parents – and school nurses – have been shamefully price-gouged by EpiPen-maker Mylan, to feel unjustly treated these days.

For example, if your parents put you in Kiddie Kollege daycare in Franklin Township, NJ before it was shut down in 2006, you probably have mercury poisoning. That’s because, unknown to your parents, Kiddie Kollege was located in a former thermometer factory. According to a class action lawsuit filed against the township and state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), permits were issued for Kiddie Kollege “even though officials were aware of the previous issues with contamination at the thermometer plant.”

But don’t expect those officials to take much responsibility. This week, the state Supreme Court “found the township and DEP were protected from liability in the case because they are government agencies.” That means “Franklin Township and the state Department of Environmental Protection do not have to contribute to a medical monitoring fund for kids” even though over “100 children were exposed to mercury contamination at Kiddie Kollege” and "[m]any had high levels of mercury in their system when tested.” So sad.

But sad doesn’t even begin to describe the plight of “youth with developmental or intellectual disabilities and serious behavior challenges” condemned to live in facilities run by AdvoServ, “owned by a private equity firm,” which has a “long record of problematic treatment.” In other words, horrible abuse.

Most recently, reportedPro Publica, a teenage girl died at an AdvoServ group home in Delaware. “Attorney Chris Gowen, who has a lawsuit against AdvoServ concerning a different teen, said he has learned workers were manually restraining the girl when she became unresponsive. …” AdvoServ cares “for roughly 700 children and adults in that state, Florida, and New Jersey, and was expanding into Virginia.” Gowen has also sued “on behalf of a young resident who says he was left unsupervised and raped repeatedly by other clients at AdvoServ homes during more than four years there. His neck was also injured during a restraint performed by workers.”

Over in Arizona, if as a child you were exposed to lethal asbestos when your dad came home from work with it all over his clothes, the state Court of Appeals just ruled that Arizona asbestos companies have no duty to help you.

In the first ruling of its kind in Arizona, the judges rejected the contention of survivors of Ernest Quiroz that his father’s employer, Reynolds Metal Co., should be held legally responsible for the son’s mesothelioma, a form of cancer frequently associated with asbestos exposure, and eventual death.

Appellate Judge Jon Thompson, writing for the unanimous court, acknowledged that some states have allowed lawsuits based on “take-home exposure.” But Thompson said that’s not the way Arizona laws are written.…

Boy, if that’s not an invitation to rewrite Arizona’s laws, I don’t know what is.

June 10, 2016

Gym season is over and maybe that’s a good thing -- given what can go wrong. In some states, a gym membership contract’s liability waiver means you can’t sue even if you are hurt and it’s the gym’s fault. (Check out this recent New Jersey case, where a state Superior Court upheld a broad liability waiver in a bench ruling, with the judge reportedly saying, “Health clubs are entitled to broad limits on liability ‘because of the fact that when you engage in rigorous physical activity—like is encouraged in a health club [and] is the entire purpose of a health club—there are chances that you may injure any range of muscles, tendons, bones, nerves, what-have-you.’”) Yikes.

Luckily, not every state thinks this way. Some states expect gyms to operate in a non-negligent manner (imagine!) and consider such broad waivers to be against public policy. To sum up, if you are hurt in a gym and it’s the gym’s fault, you may not be able to do much about it depending on where you are.

Wonder what that all means for Soul Cycle?

The Hollywood Reporter has just published an article describing Soul Cycle's litany of legal doo-doo for a range of problems, safety and otherwise. (Yes, the fact that THR has investigated this tells you a lot about the cult of Soul Cycle.)

Here’s one case about the hazards of spin class when the instructor apparently doesn’t care much if you’re not “front row” material:

[Carmen] Farias says she decided to give the sport a spin as part of a corporate outing in July 2014. She says she had never been to a spinning class of any kind and, while she had ridden a traditional bicycle before, she had not engaged in a physical fitness regimen for several years. An unnamed employee helped Farias clip into her cycle, but no one ever showed her how it worked or warned her not to get out of the seat while the flywheel was spinning. …

"Carmen was embarrassed that she was being called out in front of her bosses and fellow employees," states the lawsuit. "The shame caused Carmen to momentarily attempt to pedal faster."

Farias says she quickly realized she needed to stop, but didn’t know how.

“Fatigue and disorientation overcame Carmen and she fell to her right and off of the saddle of the spinning cycle,” states the complaint. “Although her head and torso were now lying to the right side of the spinning cycle, Carmen’s left and right foot remained locked to the pedals.”

The momentum of the flywheel kept the pedals turning and her left ankle was repeatedly dislocated, she claims, leaving her "catastrophically injured." She says she completed and signed the new rider waiver form, but left it on her desk at work and any waiver she may have signed while checking in at the Beverly Hills studio in is a violation of public policy and unenforceable because SoulCycle failed to provide her with a copy.

But here’s an interesting wrinkle: Soul Cycle instructors allegedly are not compensated for any time they spend providing the required “15-minute introduction to spinning and instruction on how to properly and safely use the bike and what to do in response to fatigue.” That’s perhaps why it wasn’t done here. Notably, this was also “an issue in two class-action wage and hour lawsuits against the company." (One case was dismissed, the other settled.)

On a related topic, a new class action lawsuit alleges that New York’s Crunch Gym pays, “fitness instructors just $8.75 an hour for one-on-one sessions and refus[es] to compensate them at all for other duties like meetings and cleaning.”

But back to spinning. Forget road rage. Have you heard about the "spin rage” case against Equinox (which owns Soul Cycle)?

Stuart Sugarman was spinning along, cheering and shouting things like "You go, girl!" in a Manhattan Equinox gym. Christopher Carter, who was a few bikes down, quickly became agitated. Sugarman claims Carter verbally assaulted him before he dismounted from his bike and in a "spin rage" picked up the front of Sugarman's cycle and threw him into the wall of the classroom, "leaving a hole in the sheetrock where his cycle penetrated."

The New York Post described it as a "psycho spin out." Carter was acquitted, but Sugarman sued him and the gym, claiming "mental and physical anguish, economic loss, pain and suffering, humiliation and damage to reputation" as a result of the incident.

The judge dismissed the company as a defendant in 2008, but litigation between the two spinners is pending.

This all makes the class action against Fitbit for their defective heart rate monitors seem downright genteel. However, the company probably needs to worry about the new study from California State Polytechnic University researchers, who found those heart rate trackers to be "highly inaccurate."

June 04, 2015

There’s an old joke that goes “What’s the difference between a used car salesman and [insert any type of salesman, consultant, agent or other professional 'persuader.']? A. The used car salesman knows when he’s lying.”

I know, nasty stereotype. On the other hand, it’s easy to imagine how used car dealers’ unique “persuasion” skills, so suitable for selling used cars, might be just as helpful to them in the political world.

However, they also point out, “While it has long been against federal law for new cars to be sold with safety recalls, there is no similar legislation to protect individuals who drive used or rental cars. Reformers want to change this, and make it illegal to sell or lease all recalled vehicles until they have been repaired.”

Unfortunately, federal legislation has (so far) stalled, so “In the meantime, auto dealers have shifted their attention to state legislatures, where lawmakers in California and New Jersey are now considering bills that would require car dealers to disclose whether a used car has an open safety recall at the time of purchase.” The car dealers call this measure “pro-consumer” with supporters making proud statements like, “Consumers have a right to all background information about their vehicles, particularly when that information can help them protect themselves and their families. This measure will promote transparency at used car dealerships and help put buyers at ease.”

Who could argue with that? Except when you understand what this bill really means: car dealers will be able to deliberately sell their customers vehicles with lethal safety defects.

Bernard Brown, “a founding member of the National Association of Consumer Advocates, a consumer attorney organization that opposes New Jersey and California’s bills,” toldThe American Prospect, “The reason for these bills is to effectively make it legal to sell recalled cars.… These [disclosure] bills would greatly undermine existing protections. On its face it may seem like they’re better, but they’re not. …They’re decidedly worse.”

“These laws are effectively ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ cars for dealers,” concurred Taras Rudnitsky, a former car safety engineer who now works as a lawyer for victims of vehicle defects. Under current negligence law, dealers have to demonstrate that they have acted in a reasonable and prudent way—which victims can argue includes selling safe vehicles to consumers. Introducing disclosure notices, Rudnitsky believes, could become the new legal burden a prudent dealer must meet in court.

In California’s case, for example, this bill would provide dealers with a loophole to get around a bunch of other laws that protect motorists. The Sacramento Bee has editorialized against the bill, noting “We err on the side of caution, especially on matters of auto safety. A defective car threatens more than the driver. It’s a safety issue for passengers and other motorists.”

We should note that bill supporters like New Jersey’s Assembly Sponsor Paul Moriarty, have an argument. He says:

[H]e had originally sought to prohibit retail sales of used cars with open recalls, but changed his mind after learning that used car dealers could unfairly lose a lot of business and perhaps face ruin as a result of a large, unexpected recall by a vehicle manufacturer. "Theoretically, you could wake up one morning and have half of your inventory unsalable," he said. "If they've got 100 cars that need to be fixed by Honda, how fast do you think the Honda dealer is going to take care of those cars when [Honda has its] own customers to take care of?" Moriarty said.

Ok so in order to keep a used car dealer in business, people are supposed to drive around in unsafe vehicles and perhaps die? This mentality is perhaps fitting for apocalyptic fantasies like Mad Max: Fury Road. Not New Jersey.

May 15, 2014

Who knew the New York Times had a sexist underbelly? Like the rest of the world we’re just speculating here, but yesterday’s abrupt firing of New York Times top editor Jill Abramson over possible complaints about pay disparity has made us realize something: the struggles shared by many Americans to be paid fairly for their work is also shared by the Executive Editor of the New York Times! (And if that’s true, what hope is there for the rest of us?) The New Yorker's Ken Aulettawrites:

As with any such upheaval, there’s a history behind it. Several weeks ago, I’m told, Abramson discovered that her pay and her pension benefits as both executive editor and, before that, as managing editor were considerably less than the pay and pension benefits of Bill Keller, the male editor whom she replaced in both jobs. “She confronted the top brass,” one close associate said, and this may have fed into the management’s narrative that she was “pushy,” a characterization that, for many, has an inescapably gendered aspect.

Of course, she's not the only one. Coincidently, today, hundreds of fast food workers decided to strike in “dozens of U.S. cities” trying to get a barely decent wage - $15 an hour – and the right to form a union.

Restaurants such as McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy's and KFC are being targeted. The strike, targeting the $200 billion fast-food industry at a time of intense competition, is aimed at directing consumer attention to the low wages of most fast-food workers. The one-day campaign continues protests launched 18 months ago.

As the workday was getting underway in New York, employees at a McDonald's near Penn Station chanted "unfair wages" as others beat drums and blew trumpets.

In fact, these fast food strikes are happening all over the world today. Meanwhile, check out some of the other companies that have been caught cheating their U.S. workers this week:

“A Walmart contractor that operates many of the retailer's distribution centers has agreed to pay $21 million in backpay to warehouse workers in California who claim they were systematically shorted on pay for years.”

“Two New Jersey ship repair companies — Bayonne Dry Dock and Repair Corp. and Coastwide Material Supply Corp. — paid $277,565 in unpaid wages and liquidated damages for distribution to 224 workers who worked for the firms at the Military Ocean Terminal in Bayonne, N.J., the Department of Labor reported."

"The United States Department of Labor released a report on Thursday that found Black Bear Burritos, LLC to be in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act. According to the Department of Labor, $232,295 in back wages is owed to 105 employees from two different restaurants in Morgantown [West Virginia]."

You know that Karl Marx saying, “workers of the world unite? Maybe he was onto something.

February 21, 2014

Shout out today to the whistleblowers of the world, who are subjected to the worst kind of insults when reporting fraud. Take yesterday’s front page New York Timesstory today about information uncovered through a False Claims Act lawsuit against the Harris School of Business.

This is a for-profit school owned by the Premier Education Group, which “owns more than two dozen trade schools and community colleges operating under several names in 10 states.” Both companies have been sued for “charging more than $10,000 for programs lasting less than a year,” where “school officials routinely misled students about their career prospects, and falsified records to enroll them and keep them enrolled, so that government grant and loan dollars would keep flowing.”

In a separate case in New Jersey, dozens of former Harris students say that the school lied about what professional certifications they would qualify for after completing their courses; some were given a brochure saying they could sit for a dental assistant certification exam — an exam that had not been offered for years. Premier settled a similar case a few years ago before it went to trial.

The former employees’ federal suit also charges that the school enrolled people who should not have been in its programs — like a student enrolled for massage therapy, though he had been convicted of a sex crime, which would prevent him from being licensed. They say the schools enrolled students who had not graduated from high school, though their programs required it, including some who presented diplomas from known fraudulent “diploma mills.”…

The most striking allegations against Premier involve students who were not capable of doing the work because they lacked the mental stability, academic skills or English proficiency, yet were kept on the books so the schools could collect their federal aid, which requires that a certain percentage of students make progress toward completion. When teachers gave them failing marks, the former employees charge, administrators changed the grades and falsified the attendance records.

Ms. Amaya, [one of the whistleblowers], said she was promoted by Harris, and then fired for insisting on following the rules.

The company’s response? To call the lawsuits “frivolous” and to question the motives of those who blew the whistle: “Jonathan D. Farrell, a lawyer for the company, said some of the people suing the company 'may have financial motives,' while others are resentful over being dismissed, and 'some are misguided.'"

So let’s be clear how effective the False Claims Act has been providing people the opportunity to blow the whistle on corporate fraud and abuse – so much so that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has made it part of their mission to destroy this law, despite how much money taxpayers have recovered. (See, e.g., today’s story about the whistleblower lawsuit against Tenet Healthcare and some of its hospitals in Georgia and South Carolina, charging that obstetric clinics referred women to hospitals in exchange for kickbacks from fraudulent Medicare and Medicaid claims – a scheme that “went on for more than a decade.” )

But check out this shocking Washington Poststory about “one of the nation’s largest government contractors,” which is “requir[ing] employees seeking to report fraud to sign internal confidentiality statements barring them from speaking to anyone about their allegations, including government investigators and prosecutors." This is according to a lawsuit just filed.

Attorneys for a whistleblower suing Halliburton Co. and its former subsidiary, Kellogg Brown & Root, said the statements violate the federal False Claims Act and other laws designed to shield whistleblowers.

“The apparent purpose and intent of the confidentiality agreements was to vacuum up any potential adverse factual information, conceal it in locked file cabinets and gag those with first-hand knowledge from going outside the company,” Stephen M. Kohn, an attorney for the whistleblower, wrote in the complaint.

Between 2002 and 2011, KBR was the largest U.S. contractor operating in Iraq and Afghanistan, winning nearly $40 billion worth of federal work, according to the U.S. Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan. KBR has been the subject of numerous lawsuits and allegations of fraud relating to contracts with the U.S. government, according to the war commission and the Justice Department.

Tim McCormack, a lawyer who specializes in whistleblower cases, said that he has seen numerous confidentiality agreements but that the one used by KBR is particularly stark because it threatens employees with termination and possible legal action if they speak out.

“This is mostly about trying to scare someone into not talking,” McCormack said. “It’s very effective to say you will be fired or sued. This is a very big company with lots of resources.”

January 31, 2014

I know. Who doesn't want to be in this picture right now? But if instead you are headed to Met Life Stadium in East Rutherford, NJ for the Super Bowl this Sunday, don’t worry about the weather. Might be a little cold (although not polar vortex cold) but at least it’s not supposed to rain, which is good news because among the very long list of things you can’t bring into the stadium are umbrellas. Also, no beach balls. Oh well. (Perhaps they meant “snow balls”?)

Anyway, in addition to the umbrella ban, Met Life stadium is taking all kinds of safety precautions. NBC News notes that there will be “more than 3,000 security guards, 700 cops and hundreds of high-tech gadgets” as people enter. In fact, law enforcement is launching “the biggest and most-expensive security net in the 48-year history of the game.” However,

This Super Bowl, says Ed Hartnett, former head of the New York Police Department’s Intelligence Unit, “truly defines the word ‘challenge’ when it comes to security.”

There is no intelligence indicating that terrorists have targeted the game or related events, but Hartnett says that doesn’t mean that threats don’t exist: “I would list them in priority order being a suicide bomber, a vehicle laden with explosives and a mass shooter or mass shooters similar to the Kenyan mall, or the Mumbai incidents,” he said. His concerns are echoed by law enforcement officials overseeing the game.

Also, “Of particular concern for security officials are potential bombings like those that killed 34 people in a railway station and on a trolley in Russia ahead of the upcoming Sochi Olympics, said Col. Rick Fuentes, superintendent of the New Jersey State Police."

Not that we’re trying to scare anyone. But here’s another fun fact that nobody really wants to talk about. If for some reason you attend the Super Bowl and the terrorist security precautions fail, there won’t be much that you can do about it. Well, you can try to hold someone accountable but you won’t get very far in court against Met Life Stadium, that's for sure.

The stadium boasts in its Super Bowl press packet that it is the “first NFL Stadium to be ‘Safety Act Certified’ by the Department of Homeland Security (2013).” We have covered this law before – you can read more about it here. It means that the stadium has “wide-ranging immunity from future lawsuits that might stem from terrorist attacks” i.e., any and all spectators have lost their right to sue for damages.

As Walter Cooper, director of research and education for the University of Southern Mississippi's National Center for Spectator Sports Safety and Security said earlier, "The NFL has Safety Act approval for its security management system, which means if there is a major incident in an NFL stadium, the league and the team are going to be in a lot better place in terms of litigation that might take place." That means spectators won't be.

If the NFL is so concerned with litigation, perhaps it should figure out how to stop players’ concussive brain injuries, especially since, “Three-quarters of a billion dollars might not be enough to pay former NFL players for damage from the bone-jarring, brain-rattling hits they took on the gridiron,” according to the federal judge who was reviewing a proposed settlement between damaged players and the NFL. Just sayin'.

January 27, 2014

It’s back home for the more than 600 (out 3,000) passengers on the “Explorer of the Seas” Royal Caribbean cruise who likely caught the noroviruses, “a common cause of gastroenteritis, which produces vomiting and diarrhea.”

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention wants the ship better sanitized so the ship is leaving beautiful St. Thomas and headed home to New Jersey, which leads the nation in toxic waste dumps. There’s some irony in this.

When these passengers return, they will likely discover that buried in the fine-print of their ticket is a ban on class action lawsuits. They may find other language, like this:

The cruise line is not "liable to the passenger for damages for emotional distress, mental suffering/anguish or psychological injury of any kind under any circumstances, except when such damages were caused by the negligence of Carnival and resulted from the same passenger sustaining actual physical injury, or having been at risk of actual physical injury."

In other words, to bring a lawsuit, they may need to prove that actual physical injury resulted as a result of “unsanitary conditions aboard on the ship.” Let’s hope this new batch of sick passengers makes their case because cruise ship indifference to the health of their passengers has got to stop We are tired of this story!

Meanwhile, if you’re one of those New Jersey passengers whose vacation was cut short, think twice before visiting New York City. There is a fascinating but disgusting story in the New York Times today about the ubiquitous water towers on top of many NYC buildings. (There are estimated to be 12,000 to 17,000 of them.) Writes the Times,

[I]nside these rustic-looking vessels, there are often thick layers of muddy sediment. Many have not been cleaned or inspected in years. And regulations governing water tanks are rarely enforced, an examination by The New York Times shows.

Even some that are routinely maintained contain E. coli, a bacterium that is used by public health officials to predict the presence of viruses, bacteria and parasites that can cause disease.

When found in drinking water, E. coli, a microbe carried in the feces of mammals and birds, requires the issuance of a boil-water order, according to federal Environmental Protection Agency regulations.

Samplings taken by The New York Times from water towers at 12 buildings in Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn found E. coli in five tanks, and coliform in those tanks and three more. Coliform by itself is not harmful, but does indicate that conditions are ripe for the growth of potentially dangerous microorganisms. The positive results all came from the bottoms of the tanks, below the pipe that feeds the buildings’ taps, though public health experts say the contamination is still a concern because the water circulates throughout the inside of the tanks.

Dr. Stephen C. Edberg, “a public-health microbiologist at Yale University who invented the now-standard test for bacterial contamination in drinking water” wrote to the city:

“Fecal contamination means that the towers are subject to animal intrusion, almost certainly birds and potentially animals such as squirrels. Clearly, these units are not sealed to the outside.”

City health officials insist that the tanks are safe, and that the laws governing them are adequate. The city’s 311 help line gets dozens of calls each year from residents saying they have become ill from drinking water, but health officials say no cases have ever been traced back to a water tank.

That does not mean people are not getting sick, Dr. Edberg said.

“It’s very hard, with a population as large and dense as New York, to even ascertain even reasonably large illness outbreaks,” he said. “You’d literally have to have entire apartment buildings getting sick at the same time.”

February 26, 2013

Yesterday, a New Jersey jury ruled in the first of about
1,800 vaginal mesh cases pending in that state against Johnson & Johnson and its
subsidiary, Ethicon. The jury
could not have been more clear: $3.35 to a South Dakota nurse, who was surgically implanted with a Gynecare Prolift vaginal mesh. This device injured
her so severely that she’s already undergone 18 operations to try to repair the damage.
From our earlier coverage of vaginal meshes:

The FDA approved surgical meshes for procedures like
abdominal surgery. But J&J
began marketing them for use in a women’s vaginal area, treating problems like
incontinence. Subsequently,
hundreds of women became severely injured and some died as the meshes began
disintegrating, growing into tissue and becoming impossible to remove.

Meanwhile, the company’s Securities and Exchange Commission
filing revealed last Friday that the United States attorney’s office in Massachusetts and the
civil division of the Justice Department are investigating J&J's marketing of its its ASR hip replacements. That’s the Frankensteinian device
that J&J finally recalled in 2010 even though it apparently knew the device was failing
and releasing high levels of metallic ions, and which it is now
defending in a bunch of lawsuits. See some of our previous coverage here.

And also last Friday, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said
it has “notified healthcare professionals of a Class I recall, the most serious
type,” of J&J’s LPS Diaphyseal Sleeve, used in reconstructive knee
surgery. Apparently, says the FDA, this device as the “potential for fractures” and the FDA has already received 10 reports of the
device malfunctioning:

A fracture in the sleeve at the joint of it could lead to
loss of function or loss of limb, infection, compromised soft tissue or death,
the FDA said.

From now on, Johnson & Johnson needs to stick to cotton
swabs. The outer ear is as far
inside the body we would like J&J products to go, thank you very much.

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